Not all green tea is created equal

Beverage has health benefits, but some brands are better than others

Rich Marini

Published 3:19 pm, Tuesday, December 31, 2013

There are plenty of good reasons to drink green tea. Studies suggest it can lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease, some cancers, even diabetes. It can help you lose weight and keep you from gaining it, too.

So whether it's brewed, bottled or taken as a supplement, green tea apparently is good for your health. Trouble is, at least according to recent headlines, what you see may not be what you get.

A recent study by Consumer Lab.com measured levels of epigallocatechin gallate in more than two dozen green tea products. Epigallocatechin gallate is believed to be the most active of the many good-for-you compounds, called catechins, found in tea.

Green teas tested included those from well-known brewed tea companies Bigelow, Lipton and Celestial Seasonings, bottled teas from Arizona and Snapple and supplements manufactured or distributed by Costco, Solgar and the Vitamin Shoppe.

"We picked products that are popular, along with a smattering of less-well-known ones," said Dr. Tod Cooperman, president of ConsumerLab.com, an independent lab that has tested nutritional supplements and food products since 1999.

But while many news outlets played the results with scary, "What's in your green tea?" headlines, overall the findings were more educational than distressing, according to Cooperman.

Of the 14 bottled tea and tea supplements that listed levels of epigallocatechin gallate on the label, only three contained significantly less than the amount claimed. The 17-ounce bottle of Honest Tea Green Tea with Honey, for example, had only about two-thirds of the 190 milligrams of the listed catechins, which includes epigallocatechin gallate and other beneficial compounds. (Experts recommend consuming 200 milligrams of epigallocatechin gallate a day for the greatest benefit.) Among products that don't list epigallocatechin gallate levels -- including all of the brewed teas -- findings were more varied. Teavana Green Tea Gyokuro Imperial, sold as loose tea, had 86 milligrams per serving, while one bag of Bigelow Green Tea had only 25 milligrams. To get the recommended amount, you'd have to drink about 2½ cups of the former, eight cups of the latter. Such variations shouldn't be surprising, considering that tea is harvested from different regions of the world and at different times of year.

Time, heat and light can also degrade epigallocatechin gallate. In an email, Honest Tea spokesman Dan Forman called the ConsumerLab.com results "misleading," adding that "we do not know at what point in the product's shelf life it was tested." He added that the company has changed its label to list levels of flavonoids instead of epigallocatechin gallate. Flavonoid level, he wrote, "is a more comprehensive classification of tea-based antioxidants that reflects all types of catechins and polyphenols." The company that makes Enzymatic Therapy Green Tea Elite (only 83.2 percent of EGCG found) has also announced it will add an extra 30 percent of epigallocatechin gallate to its products to make up for any loss between the product's manufacture and consumption.